Reverend Traveler

Rev. Blake Purcell with Kirill Treschetka, Yuri Levchenko and brothers from Korean Seminary

After the scheduled Intensive course, which brought together 14 Russian ministers and 6 American professors, Blake Purcell, the Rector of the Biblical Theological Seminary of St. Petersburg, Russia, started on a journey to visit our students’ hometowns and churches.

Blake made his first stop in Krasnodar in the South of Russia. It is 80 miles northeast of the Blake Sea. “The Lord is opening up wonderful opportunities for mentoring as I am living in Jenya’s home with his family. We have already gotten to discuss his ministry philosophy, he and his wife’s child rearing practices, plans for Christian schooling for his kids and the kids in his church of 300 folks.” Jenya – is Evgeni Kuzmenko, the second year student of the Biblical Theological Seminary of St. Petersburg and a pastor of Evangelical Church of Krasnodar. “I have not spoken much Russian for almost a year and am surprised that they can understand my garbled mumbling, but they seem to have the gift of interpretation of tongues!”, Blake said.

During his stay in Krasnodar Blake had several meetings with the pastor’s main disciples, 40 of his key people, all about 20 years old. Also he attended the wedding ceremony of a seminary grad of ours Sergey Matsuk to a godly young lady from this church, and shared his testimony at the Sunday morning church service.

“God is opening up wonderful doors at this church and the local Christian University”, Blake said when he was leaving Krasnodar for Vladivostok, which is located about 10 hours by plane to the very east of Russia. We call this area the Far East.

Yuri Levchenko and Kiril Treschetka, the third year students of the Biblical Theological Seminary of St. Petersburg and pastors of two Presbyterian Churches in the Far East, hosted Blake in Vladivostok.

During his stay in the Far East he met with over 200 people from six churches. “There are about 20 Korean Presbyterian churches in the area and none of them know anything, they told me, of the Reformed faith or Presbyterianism, and about half would like to”, Blake said. Ministers of Presbyterian churches of that area expressed their desire to start an extension of our seminary there. They said if we had a conference and intensive course in Vladivostok, 100 would come to an event like that. Five ministers interested in joining the computer courses starting next week.

On his last Sunday in Vladivostok Blake attended a wonderful Palm Sunday service in the Presbyterian Church of Vladivostok, with about 60 folks, lots of young people and children. “There is a very deep and broad interest in the Reformed faith here,” Blake said.

This trip was not easy for our Rector Blake Purcell because right before it we held a really intensive Intensive Course in the Biblical Theological Seminary of St. Petersburg and Blake boarded the plane in two days after all our students passed their final exams and left for home. Moreover, it took Blake about 40 hours to get from Vladivostok to Moscow and then the States. But it was a real blessing for all those he could visit and meet. In Krasnodar Blake said, “I hope to imitate Winston Churchill who during the war gave the most wonderful speeches in the most awful French”. Surely, he did that, though not in French.

Praise the Lord for this opportunity to meet new people and to support our faithful ministers. We thank God that He gave Blake a lot of stamina to carry out his trip and that He brought him back home safe and sound.

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